If the Jets are going into a full blown rebuild, there's only one move Leafs NEED to go out and make this summer
The Winnipeg Jets are already losing Paul Stastny to free agency in the next couple of weeks. Pierre-Luc Dubois and his agent have informed the Jets that they are not interested in signing a contract that doesn't walk him straight to free agency. The Jets have now placed both Mark Scheifele and captain Blake Wheeler on the trading block. If that's not the foundation for a scorched earth rebuild, I don't know what is.
For the Leafs, the solution to their problem is a rather obvious one. If the Jets are triggering a rebuild, the Leafs should simply do whatever they can to go out and get Connor Hellebuyck.
The 2019-20 Vezina Trophy winner owns a career 201-129-35 record, with a career .916 sv% and 2.69 GAA to go along with it. That's WELL above the league average, and if you consider the fact that the Jets haven't had a quality compliment of defensemen in front of him really at any point during his NHL career, it stands to reason that if he did, those numbers would all be significantly higher.
There are a lot of people who don't believe in analytics and who rely on the eye test to tell them what a good goaltender looks like. Well, for at least the last 5 seasons, Hellebuyck has been a consensus top 5 goalie in the NHL. That's the kind of guy you can win with.
Hellebuyck is signed for two more seasons at a very reasonable $6.16M AAV, and he's worth every penny. Even on an abysmal Jets team this season, Hellebuyck still backstopped them to a 29-27-10 record in 66 starts, finishing the season with a .910 sv%.
I can't even begin to imagine what a deal for a goaltender of Hellebuyck's caliber might look like, but I do know that if you're the Leafs and your biggest area of need is in goal and has been for quite some time, when you have a chance at a 29-year-old with a Vezina Trophy under his belt, you go out and you get him.
A rebuilding Jets team is going to want futures, and given the state of their blueline, they're probably going to want a top defensive prospect, so I'd imagine Rasmus Sandin and a couple of high picks would certainly be involved. Other than that, your guess would be as good as mine.
We spend an awful lot of time talking about which top 6 forward or which top 4 defenseman is the missing piece in Toronto. I'd argue that no matter which name you pick at either position, none of them would measure up to the difference-maker that a goalie like Connor Hellebuyck would be.
